Time for a Military Man in the White House?

Larry Kudlow

3/8/2015 12:01:00 AM

“More than any election since 1980,” ace pollster Kellyanne Conway tells me, “2016 will be a national-security contest.” And she says former Gov. Rick Perry may have the best chance to convince voters that he can be commander-in-chief.Let’s think on that. With the world in turmoil, who do you really want sitting across the negotiating table from Vladimir Putin, the Iranian mullahs or the Chinese? How about a military man to command the war to destroy radical-Islamic jihadism?

Very few people know that between 1972 and 1977, Perry served in the U.S. Air Force, flying C-130 tactical aircraft in Europe and the Middle East. He is the only current GOP candidate to have worn the military uniform. And he rarely talks about it.

Perry’s childhood goal was to learn to fly. He went into the Air Force after graduating from Texas A&M. And he ended his five years of service with the rank of captain. As Perry would say on other subjects, “That matters.”

The Perry story usually revolves around the Texas economic-growth miracle. But the military service? The captain’s rank? The piloting of strategic-airlift planes? That’s hardly known. And in his 14 years as governor of the Lone Star state, plenty of national-security issues (and border-security issues) came across his desk.

So imagine this: A president who actually served in the regular military. A president who understands the military, listens to the military and has good relations with the military — the opposite of the Obama experience.

And imagine having a president who looks forward to the daily intelligence briefing, completely unlike Obama. What a change. (more…)

It’s a neat package of stories, videos, and political humor at Perry’s expense that covers everything that went wrong in his bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. The campaign was so dreadful it earned Perry, 64, a reputation as poorly informed and slow-witted. He was left for dead, politically speaking.

Rick Perry is no longer dead. He is alive, well, and hyperactive as a national political figure. He’s now a leading candidate to be the GOP presidential nominee in 2016, assuming he runs. He has admirers in the media. Jennifer Rubin, the hard-to-please blogger for the Washington Post, wrote recently: “The media and voters are seeing a Rick Perry largely absent in the 2012 race—shrewd, self-possessed, competent and calm.”

He has fostered ties to the community of conservative experts and intellectuals. For seven hours this spring, four prominent foreign policy experts met with Perry at the governor’s mansion in Austin. As they walked to their hotel afterwards, one of them said, “Is that really the same guy we saw in 2012?”

Perry has changed. It’s not just his new glasses or that he’s given up wearing cowboy boots. He knows more about more subjects. He’s more relaxed on TV. His political fights are now with leaders (Jerry Brown, Rand Paul, Andrew Cuomo), not state legislators. He’s grown comfortable in the company of world leaders like former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan. He’s not uptight or cocky. When he spent a day in Iowa in May to help Governor Terry Branstad build his reelection treasury, he was content to play second fiddle to Branstad.

This isn’t to say there’s a new Perry. He hasn’t had a complete makeover. The coolness between him and the Bushes still exists. (Barbara Bush especially is not a Perry fan.) But there is a different Perry, better at politics, better at seizing opportunities, better at taking bold steps. None of this came about by accident. Three things happened. The first was Perry’s embarrassment over his performance in the 2012 race. Humbled, he came to recognize that his failure was entirely his own fault. He hadn’t been prepared. He’d expected being governor of a big, tough-to-govern state like Texas was preparation enough. But it had only prepared him to continue being governor.

Second, if he were to run again for president—and redeem himself—he would need fresh help. And in early 2013, he hired Jeff Miller, a 40-year-old political consultant and lobbyist from California, as his top adviser. He and Miller put together a plan to prepare Perry to run for president in 2016.

Miller moved to Austin on Christmas Eve 2012 to open a consulting business in a state where Republicans matter. In California, they’re inconsequential. He had known Perry for a decade and chaired the governor’s presidential drive in California in 2012. His intention was to advise Perry but also develop other paying clients. Within weeks, however, he signed on full-time with Perry. Miller is paid by Perry’s PAC, not Texas taxpayers.

And third, Perry had to decide whether to run for governor once more in 2014. In seeking a presidential nomination, sitting governors have a fundraising advantage. Several aides emphasized this. But Perry’s experience in 2012 told him he couldn’t run effectively for president if he were tied down in Austin.

He chose the presidential route, but kept his decision to step down after 14 years as governor a secret for months. Besides his wife Anita, only two others knew of his decision. Before his announcement a year ago, he had separate statements drafted, one saying he’d run for governor again, the other he wouldn’t. (more…)

EXCERPT FROM THE ARTICLE: The National Guard has proved over and over again that it is the most cost-efficient way to maintain a force of experienced, capable fighting men and women. The Guard can be maintained at one-third the cost of active-duty personnel, and — again — serves as a vital component of emergency response in states across the country, saving lives and mitigating the costs of disasters.

Cutting the National Guard also means letting go thousands of our most capable warriors, which would reduce our ability to respond to a national crisis or major terrorist attack.

On a personal level, however, it’s difficult to imagine how any military man must feel after serving his country for years, even decades, only to find himself placed on the chopping block like this. This is especially true for those who may only be a few years away from retirement, and now all of that has been placed at risk, needlessly.

Over the past decade, the United States has leaned upon our military at a level rarely seen in our nation’s history. Years-long deployments, long-term family separations, related health issues and the frustrations of dealing with an outmatched Veterans Affairs system have been their rewards for their service.

Granted, our military men and women understand the sacrifices required of them, and their continued service speaks volumes about their patriotism and character.

However, now President Obama wants to add another stress to their lives: fear of a pink slip.

As I have said for years, government desperately needs to cut spending. During this president’s tenure, though, we have spent billions on a nationalized health care system that isn’t working, and billions more in bailouts so the Federal Reserve could buy “troubled assets” from banks. The president seems addicted to spending your money.

Yet in the midst of all that waste, when he does decide to make cuts, he wants to start with the Army and National Guard.

This is not Mr. Obama’s first attempt at gutting the Guard, which is under the command of the nation’s governors in each of our respective states. In 2012, the Air Force attempted to cut the Air National Guard disproportionately to their active duty counterparts. Governors spoke up and congressional leaders rejected Mr. Obama’s plan, instead calling for a commission to study the structure of the Air Force. That commission recently released its findings, affirming that the Air Guard can provide the necessary capacity and capability at a lower cost.

“Perry Launches Vicious Attack On Texas Lawmaker” — so declares the Huffington Post on its front page. The story itself claims Texas Governor Rick Perry jabbed new feminist hero Wendy Davis “for being a teen mom.” Reading on, I see that Davis herself reacted with outrage, declaring in a statement:

Rick Perry’s statement is without dignity and tarnishes the high office he holds,” she said. “They are small words that reflect a dark and negative point of view. Our governor should reflect our Texas values. Sadly, Gov. Perry fails that test.”

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, was similarly upset:

Rick Perry’s remarks are incredibly condescending and insulting to women,” Richards said. “This is exactly why the vast majority of Texans believe that politicians shouldn’t be involved in a woman’s personal health care decisions. Women are perfectly capable of deciding whether to choose adoption, end a pregnancy, or raise a child, and they don’t need Rick Perry’s help making that decision.

Romney has a good story to tell, if he’s willing to tell it.

About the best that can be said about the Republican attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is that President Obama is going to do the same thing eventually, so GOP primary voters might as well know what’s coming. Yet that hardly absolves Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and others for their crude and damaging caricatures of modern business and capitalism.

Bain’s business model is little more than “rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company,” says Mr. Gingrich, whose previous insights into free enterprise include years of defending the taxpayer-fed business of corn ethanol.

A super PAC supporting the former House Speaker plans to spend $3.4 million in TV ads in South Carolina portraying Mr. Romney as Gordon Gekko without the social conscience. The financing for these ads will come from a billionaire who made his money in the casino business, which Mr. Gingrich apparently considers morally superior to investing in companies in the hope of making a profit.

Mr. Perry, who has no problem using taxpayer financing to back his political allies in Texas, chimes in that “I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out. Because his company Bain Capital, with all the jobs that they killed, I’m sure he was worried he’d run out of pink slips.”

Politics isn’t subtle, and these candidates are desperate, but do they have to sound like Michael Moore?

We have our policy differences with Mr. Romney, but by any reasonable measure Bain Capital has been a net job and wealth creator. Founded in 1984 as an offshoot of the Bain consulting company, Bain Capital’s business is a combination of private equity and venture capital. The latter means taking a flyer on start-ups that may or may not pan out, something that neither Mr. Gingrich nor Mr. Obama seem to find offensive when those investments are made by Silicon Valley firms in “clean energy.”

One Bain investment during Mr. Romney’s tenure was to back an entrepreneur named Tom Stemberg, who was convinced he could provide savings for small-business owners if they were willing to shop at a store instead of taking deliveries. Today, the Staples chain of business-supply stores employs 90,000 people.

Bain also backed a start-up called Bright Horizons that now manages child-care centers for more than 700 corporate clients around the world. Many other venture bets failed, but that’s capitalism, which is supposed to be a profit and loss system.

12/7/2011

Time magazine didn’t mind ruffling feathers in religious America with a cover this summer that asked “Is Hell Dead?” Never mind that America is overwhelmingly Christian. Then Time found only one letter worth plucking out to feature in large, bold type from a man in Dallas: “Hell is easy to define. It would be spending eternity with evangelicals.”

That sums up the secular, liberal media attitude toward America’s Christian majority, and it explains why they find Republicans so objectionable when they make their religious faith part of their campaign for the presidency. Matthew Philbin and Erin Brown of the Media Research Center’s Culture and Media Institute have written a new report called “Baptism By Fire” that analyzes coverage of the presidential candidates and their religious faith. Does it surprise anyone that they found a huge difference in coverage of Republicans and Democrats?

In the first ten months of 2011, network morning and evening news stories mentioned the religious faith of GOP presidential challengers more than seven times as often (143 stories to 19 stories) than they had for Democratic challengers in the first ten months of 2007. They’ve been 13 times more likely to be critical of the Republicans’ religious beliefs than they were of Democrats just four years ago.

Did I mention Rev. Jeremiah Wright? In the first ten months of 2007, there were just six instances where stories challenged or negatively highlighted the faith of liberal White House hopefuls. The networks almost entirely avoided questions about Barack Obama’s upbringing in a Muslim country and his two decades of attendance of a radical Chicago church. Likewise, audiences were reassured that Hillary Clinton’s faith was important — but only as it saw her through her husband’s reckless infidelities. Primary candidates Joe Biden and Chris Dodd were never asked about their fervent voting record in favor of abortion — even partial-birth abortion — in full opposition to their Catholic faith. (more…)